Stephen Colbert returns to examine Fox News firing Tucker Carlson plus Seth Meyers takes one more closer look before the writers strike

There was a notable absence from both Tucker Carlson leaving Fox News and Seth Meyers takes more closer looks at Tucker Carlson leaving Fox News, Stephen Colbert. He returned Monday night and caught up on last week's news in Why Tucker Got Fired | Angry Fox Viewers Turn to Newsmax | Brits: DeSantis Is No Star.

Stephen unlocks clues to the mystery of Tucker Carlson’s firing and the ratings fallout that ensued, and looks at reactions to the Florida governor’s trip overseas.

Colbert's audience cheered nearly as loud for Carlson's firing as when he told them about Trump's indictment. LOL, show the viewers what you really think. Speaking of which, hearing that "Russian state media," specifically Russia Today, publicly offered Carlson a job shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. I didn't think they would be that brazen, but they were. As I wrote more than a decade ago, "Russia Today loves to broadcast dissenting American voices" and Carlson qualifies. The only problem is that Russia Today is blocked in the U.S., so Carlson won't be reaching his target (pun intended) audience. Ah, too bad.

Colbert couldn't resist making a joke about Joe Biden's age when bringing up Biden declaring he's running for re-election. That's O.K. Biden can take a joke.

My reaction to Colbert calling Ron DeSantis, "a broken robot in the hall of never-gonna-be presidents" was I see what you did there.


I couldn't resist a meme/gif from a Disney movie.

I'm returning to Colbert after Fox Hosts Scared They Could Be Fired After Tucker, Paranoid About "Snitches": A Closer Look from "Late Night with Seth Meyers."

Seth takes a closer look at Fox News reportedly being gripped by paranoia and fear as on-air personalities worry they could be next to go after last week's surprise ouster of Tucker Carlson.

I used to enjoy watching Maria Bartiromo on CNBC during the early 2000s, so it pains me to see what's she's become now. I miss that version of her. On the other hand, I prefer watching comedians do impressions of Jeanine Pirro. If she goes off the air, I won't miss her, just laughing at her.

Meyers is right about the contrast between Biden and the Republicans; he has to re-use a couple of clips while the Republicans create new material all the time. Speaking of which, he had fun with DeSantis's bobblehead and deer-in-the-headlights reaction to falling behind Donald Trump in the polls, although he resisted the obvious Disney reference. Maybe he should have made one for Universal Studios, who is his employer.

He closed with a mention about the WGA strike. Colbert had an entire segment about it, Future News Jokes Now…Just In Case.

Stephen shares some thoughts on what could be ahead for The Late Show and peeks into the future for news stories that might come across his desk in the coming weeks.

We'll see if those predictions come true, but it will be a while before we hear jokes about them from Colbert, Meyers, or any of the rest of the late-night talk-show hosts, because the writers are now on strike. That means no more comedy posts about the news (unless the hosts are guests on news shows) and no more "Saturday Night Live" highlights on Sunday until the strike is resolved. Darn. I'll figure out something else for the Sunday entertainment feature. In the meantime, stay tuned for Star Wars Day, Cinco De Mayo, and Revenge of the Sixth. I love holidays!

Chewbacca arrested as Darth Vader campaigns for Mayor of Odessa, Ukraine

Last year, I reported on the aborted campaign of Darth Vader for President of Ukraine.

[S]omeone posing as Darth Vader ran for President of Ukraine on the Internet Party ticket this spring before his candidacy was rejected.  Too bad about that.  His campaign would have been more fun to report on that what actually happened in Ukraine this summer.

The Dark Lord of the Sith granted my wish, as he's now running for Mayor of Odessa.

Darth Vader is among the candidates vying for the post of Mayor in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa.  He joins Peking Duck and a man calling himself Putin in the leadership race.

Unfortunately, things are running about as smoothly as last time.  Follow over the jump for the Sith Lord's misfortunes.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

I know I promised to post some election coverage at the end of Good economic news for election day.  Later.  Right now, I'm not up to writing those articles.  Instead, I'm going to add another holiday to this blog's calendar, Guy Fawkes Day.*  Take it away, Geek and Sundry!

The Gunpowder Plot (ETA: Geek and Sundry has taken down that video sometime over the past five years, so I'm replacing it with Vox's Guy Fawkes Day: explained although I'm still retaining the description of the video along with Vox's.)

Geek and Sundry: Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. Kiriosity explores some explosive facts (and Fawkes) about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605; the attempted assasination against King James I of England by a group of English Catholics.

Vox: An abridged history of how Guy Fawkes day earned its namesake.

Of course, the adoption of Guy Fawkes (or at least his mask) as a symbol of Anonymous has added new meaning to the day, as explained by Russia Today in Million Mask March rallies sweep the globe.

The Million Mask March is spreading worldwide as demonstrators protest against austerity, mass surveillance and oppression.

It's a pity that Russia Today is the main news outlet covering this, as the channel has an agenda of promoting troublemakers in the U.S. and elsewhere.  Their agenda of destabilizing Russia's rivals contaminates that of the protesters, which I generally support.

*While I have mentioned the day before, I've never actually observed it here.

Snowden asks for asylum, Chapman asks for Snowden

In the ongoing soap opera that is La Affair Snowden, the latest development is that he has applied for asylum in Russia again.  Russia Today, which in this case I think would be a reliable source, reports in Snowden asks Russia for asylum.

NSA leaker & former CIA employee Edward Snowden has asked for political asylum in Russia, saying he could not fly to Latin America, according to Human Rights Watch representative who met the whistleblower. Thirteen Russian and international human rights advocates and lawyers have gathered at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport for a meeting with Snowden.

I know at least one person who would be happy about this development, deported Russian spy and model Anna Chapman.  She tweeted her desires last week, which were captured by New York Magazine.


So she isn't Putin's mistress after all.  I'm disappointed.  On the other hand, Next Media Animation wasn't disappointed in the least.  This is exactly the kind of goofy sexy story that they specialize in, as they demonstrated with Edward Snowden receives proposal from spy Anna Chapman via twitter!

Edward Snowden received an unexpected surprise during his extended layover in a Moscow airport transit zone. Anna Chapman, the former Russian spy and current Russian model proposed to him via Twitter. Since her spying career came to its ignominious end in 2010, Chapman has reinvented herself as a TV host and model. Marrying Chapman might not be the worst choice for Snowden, who could use the Russian passport to finally get out of the airport.

"A match made in James Bond's fever dreams"--I'll say!  It's a crossover of "From Russia with Love" and "The Spy who Loved me" updated for the 21st Century with touches of "Goldeneye" and "Skyfall" for good measure.

CNN and Russia Today cover the March Against Monsanto

It looks like I'm not done with the March against Monsanto.  For starters, commenter Nebris retweeted Wizard Gynoid's tweet about CNN's lack of coverage of the event on Saturday.

I guess it should not be surprising that @CNN has no mention of the March Against Monsanto events currently going on all over the world.

Today, CNN finally got around to posting a video of the event on its YouTube channel.

Millions protest genetically modified food

Jake Tapper reports on the controversy that surrounds GMOs and one of the companies that makes them.

Better late than never and with complete statistics--two million protesters in 436 cities in 46 countries.  That partially makes up for not reporting about the event on Saturday, when it was breaking news.  As it is, it's enough for me to add a link to the video on the PowerPoint slide for environmental science that describes the reaction to GMOs as mixed, with mass acceptance on one hand and protests on the other.  This video will make the point far better than the photo of Greenpeace street theater against Frankenfood I have now, which I show below.


Nebris also reposted Wizard Gynoid's tweet to his Facebook timeline, where I responded "Nah, you'll have to watch Russia Today."  Sure enough, RT America, which I used as my primary source for Monsanto wins gene patent case, has been on Monsanto's case for years and hyped Saturday's protest the day before.  They posted a video report about the protest in Los Angeles an hour ahead of CNN.

Southern Californians keep up fight against GMO

A thousand people took over the streets of Los Angeles Saturday to March against Monsanto. The subject of genetically engineered food is especially important in California, where much of the world's fruits and vegetables are grown.

Finally, there is the other side, which the CNN report gave time to and which Bryan Walsh at Time Magazine takes in Modifying the Endless Debate Over Genetically Modified Crops

I’ll admit—I’ve never quite understood the obsession surrounding genetically modified (GM) crops. To environmentalist opponents, GM foods are simply evil, an understudied, possibly harmful tool used by big agribusiness to control global seed markets and crush local farmers. They argue that GM foods have never delivered on their supposed promise, that money spent on GM crops would be better funneled to organic farming and that consumers should be protected with warning labels on any products that contain genetically modified ingredients. To supporters, GM crops are a key part of the effort to sustainably provide food to meet a global population that is growing by the billions. But more than that, supporters see the knee-jerk GM opposition of many environmentalists as fundamentally anti-science, no different than the deniers on the other side of the political spectrum who question the basics of man-made climate change.

For both sides, GM foods seem to act as a symbol: you’re pro-agribusiness or anti-science. But science is exactly what we need more of when it comes to GM foods, which is why I was happy to see the venerable journal Nature devote a special series of articles to the GM food controversy. You can download most of them for free here, and they’re well worth reading. The upshot: while GM crops haven’t yet realized their initial promise and have been dominated by agribusiness, there is reason to continue to use and develop them to help meet the enormous challenge of sustainably feeding a growing planet.

That doesn’t mean GM crops are perfect, or a one sizes fits all solution to global agriculture woes. Nature points out that most of the benefit of GM technology so far has indeed gone to big agribusiness, much of it in the form of herbicide-resistant crops like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans or cotton.

My take is that the scientific case against GMOs exists, but it's fairly weak.  On the other hand, the social and economic case against their being used by agribusiness to monopolize food is much stronger.

Stay tuned, as this is a story I've been following for years, even if the first time I mentioned Monsanto on this blog was in Food Day News from Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos, where I mention the research that produced the tumor-ridden mice shown in the CNN video.

ETA:  There is another part to CNN's coverage that I missed the first time.

Despite FDA approval, many distrustful of GMOs

New York Times investigative reporter Michael Moore says there are, as yet, no studies linking GMO to health problems.

As I wrote, CNN is making sure to get the other side, even when they have on a reporter who is critical of the food system.

Monsanto wins gene patent case

Russia Today has two video clips on the unanimous decision in favor of Monsanto enforcing its patent on RoundUp-Ready soybeans.

First, Monsanto wins landmark case in Supreme Court gives the overview.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bio-tech giant Monsanto. In the case, Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman was being accused of seed infringement after he allegedly planted soybean seed without the company's permission. RT's Liz Wahl brings us more on the landmark case and how the 75 year-old man violated Monsanto's patent.

I had no idea about the inflation in seed prices until I watched this video.

Next, RT America offers one of its trademark opinion and analysis pieces with inflammatory titles in Monsanto taking over America's agriculture: New victory in Supreme Court.

A battle between Monsanto and an Indiana farmer ended on Monday after the Supreme Court found Vernon Bowman guilty of patent infringement. The 75-year-old farmer is expected to pay approximately $85,000 in damages. Many see this as a major blow against smaller farmers across the country and fear this ruling can threaten the livelihood of thousands of farmers. Patent attorney Mark Walters, who represented the defendant, joins us to discuss the details of the case and what this means for America's agriculture future.

This case is important because it shows that Monsanto will continue to be as dominant in the nation's food supply as Microsoft was in PC operating systems, as characterized in the movie "Food, Inc."  That makes this case relevant to my class, especially the following questions from the worksheet I included in On Thanksgiving eve, I present "Food, Inc."

26. What has Monsanto done to promote use of their soybeans and stop seed saving?  List at least three examples.


27. List at least five government officials who were connected to Monsanto and other food producers.  What effect does the narrator think this has had on regulation of food production?

Part of the answer to 26 is sue people who violate Monsanto's patents.  One of the people who traveled through the revolving door between Monsanto and the government is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the decision allowing Monsanto to patent GMOs.  It looks like the rest of the court went along with his precedent.

This won't be the only Supreme Court case involving biotechnology.  Discovery News on YouTube discusses another in Gene Patents: 5 Things You Should Know.

The debate over whether we can patent genes has come to a head with the US Supreme Court weighing in on two human genes linked to cancer. Laci has all the details on what you need to know about this colossal decision and the impact it could have on medicine.

Based on the Monsanto decision, I expect the court to rule in favor of patenting human genes, too.  Either way, it's more evidence that we live in science fiction times.

Earth Hour 2013

After celebrating the event in 2011 and 2012, there is no way I was going to skip marking it this year.

First, I present this video from Russia Today.

Planet Power: Over 150 countries turn lights off for Earth Hour 2013

It's an event that has united millions around the world - Earth Hour also saw Moscow turn the lights off in the Kremlin for the very first time. The lights are now back on in the Russian capital, and earlier I spoke to Madina Kochenova about the fascinating event.

For more details, read this article from The Canadian Press via CBC, which lists Earth Hours as 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM local time.

Vancouver leads Canada as Earth Hour 'capital'
Canadians will join millions worldwide in marking Earth Hour at 8:30 p.m. in local time zones
The Canadian Press
Posted: Mar 23, 2013 12:04 PM

The City of Vancouver beat out 66 other cities around the world for the title of Global Earth Hour Capital in a challenged issued by the World Wildlife Fund.

The WWFund, which is the driving force behind Earth Hour, said it bestowed the 'capital' honour on Vancouver in recognition of the city's efforts to reduce pollution that causes climate change.

The city also received the highest number of online votes in a People's Choice ballot, and the city's government passed an official "Earth Hour 2013" proclamation.

About 13-million Canadians turned off their lights for an hour last year in the symbolic event aimed at drawing awareness to climate change.

BBC also has a slideshow: In pictures: Earth Hour around the world.

For more Earth Hour videos, surf over to the Earth Hour YouTube channel.

Happy Earth Hour, and remember to turn all unnecessary lights off tonight!

Will Al Jazeera America hire Keith Olbermann?

When I announced Current firing Keith Olbermann, I described my disappointment and what I planned on doing about it.

I'm disappointed but not terribly surprised. I've been a fan of Keith's since he was the sports anchor for KTLA TV 5 in Los Angeles almost 25 years ago, which means I remember when the station fired him after less than a year. Therefore, his being let go from Current is just par for the course, although I'd been hoping he'd last longer than he did. As for what this means to me, my wife and I switched from cable to Direct TV just so we could watch Current. Now that Olbermann is no longer working for the station, we have no reason to renew our contract. After it expires, we will go back to the cable company.

Something happened this week that might just mean we'll keep Direct TV; a new Al Jazeera America will take over Current's slot.

Building on the international success of Al Jazeera network and its international channel Al Jazeera English - the purchase of Current TV opens the way for the new Al Jazeera America. It's expected that the channel will be available in more than 40 million homes across the US. Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reports from Washington, DC.

As for what this might mean, I'll let PBS explain.

In an attempt to reach a larger American audience, Al Jazeera English announced plans to purchase cable channel Current TV, first started by former Vice President Al Gore. Ray Suarez talks to Al Jazeera executive producer Robert Wheelock about the Qatar government-owned news organization's move and challenges going forward.

I'm looking forward to watching Al Jazeera America, if nothing else than for the same reason I used to watch CBC before I got cable/satellite, listen to the BBC World Service on NPR. and subscribe to Al Jazeera English, BBC, and RT America on YouTube--news from a different perspective than what I get in from the U.S. services.

I also have another reason to look forward to Al Jazeera America, one that has much more basis in hope than in fact--the return of Keith Olbermann to my TV screen.  That's not impossible, as Forbes reported last October that Keith very much wants to work again.

Think Keith Olbermann has burned his last bridge in the television business? He doesn’t think so.

Seven months after he got dismissed by Current TV, the temperamental host is aggressively job-shopping, and he’s not being too picky about it.

In recent weeks, Olbermann has reached out to executives at a slew of different networks to communicate his desire for a new on-air role, according to people with knowledge of those conversations. Those include both cable outlets and at least one broadcast network.

Over at the New York Magazine entry on the topic, a bunch of the readers left their suggestions for what Keith could do, including me.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Al Jazeera English or, better yet, Russia Today America. RT America loves troublemakers.

This might be the perfect opportunity for both Al Jazeera America and Keith Olbermann.  For Al Jazeera, it would get a broadcaster with instant name recognition.  For Keith, not only would he be working again for a channel that would be a lightning rod for attention, it would also give him an opportunity to have a good laugh at his old employers, who he mocked serverely just after he was shown the door.

I can see three flies in the ointment that might prevent this happening.  The first is Keith's notorious reputation as a prima donna; Al Jazeera might not want that.  The second is whether Keith would be interested in working for a TV channel owned by a foreign government; it's why I think he'd have even worse trouble with RT America, even though I think the channel would be a good fit for him otherwise.  Can you imagine how much of a temptation Keith would have to twit Vladimir Putin, the most interesting man in the world?  I don't think he could resist.  Finally, I don't know if Al Jazeera became a party to the lawsuit, too, and I don't have time to find out tonight, either.  If they did, then they might have inherited the bad blood, too.  On the other hand, it might be a good way to settle it.  We'll see.

Here's to hoping!

Johnson and Stein in final third party presidential debate on Russia Today

I made three predictions in Free and Equal Debate tonight. How did they turn out? Here's the first one.

Maybe a coherent response could be cobbled together [from] the positions from [of] Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Rocky Anderson. I don't hold out much hope for anything useful coming out of the mouth of Virgil Goode.

Now The Atlantic's report on the debate: Shift-Alt-Debate: Meet 4 Presidential Candidates the Press Mostly Ignores

What do Libertarians, Greens, and Justice Party supporters agree about?

• It's urgent to rein in the military-industrial complex and reorient American foreign policy away from bellicose interventionism.
• Civil liberties are being trampled on by Democrats and Republicans.
• The drug war is a failed policy. Some combination of decriminalization, legalization and regulation is needed.

It says something powerful that people so ideologically diverse agree on those significant points.

Not just one, but three coherent positions from Johnson, Stein, and Anderson. That's even better than I expected.

What about Goode?

Goode wants to halt immigration. And along with Johnson, he wants a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on the legislature, imagining that it would weaken special interests.

No and no. First, I'm not in favor of restricting legal immigration any more than it already is, as I wrote in Happy 4th of July from James Howard Kunstler's Tea Party! Second, I've seen what term limits have done here in Michigan; they've actually made special interests more powerful, not less.

What else do Goode and Johnson agree on?

Gary Johnson and Virgil Goode believe America's deficits have put us on the edge of fiscal collapse. For them, balancing the budget is an urgent priority, and they're actually serious about it -- unlike the fake fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party, Johnson and Goode fess up to the fact that they'd try to make substantial cuts to everything from entitlements to the bureaucracy to the military.

I have my doubts about the wisdom of this version of austerity as well. There is a reason why I have an "anti-austerity" label.

That's two predictions that came true. What about the third?

I suspect it will be Jill Stein vs. Gary Johnson in the final debate.

And the finalists are...

Winners of October 23rd Presidential Debate Have Been Announced

“The voters have spoken, and we are pleased to announce that Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will advance to the second debate,” stated Christina Tobin, founder and chair of Free & Equal.

I'm three for three!

So, where can people watch the debate? I have a hint.

"[F]or unclear reasons, Russia Today"--snork! Russia Today loves to broadcast dissenting American voices, including tinfoil hat wearer Alex Jones. This event is right up their alley.

Take it away, Russia Today!

RT Presents Final US Third-Party Presidential Debate

RT is proud to host the final US presidential debate between Libertarian Party candidate Gov. Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein. The two will go head-to-head and discuss foreign policy live from RT's Washington, DC studio on Tuesday, October 30. Voters can catch the show-down live on RT America, RT.com and right here on YouTube from 9:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time, (October 31, 1:00 a.m. -- 2:30 a.m. GMT)

I have this feeling the two candidates will agree as much on an anti-interventionist foreign policy just as much as Obama and Romney agreed on an interventionist one. Russia Today couldn't ask for a better pair of candidates.

Free and Equal Debate tonight

Last night wasn't really the last presidential debate. There will be at least two more, including this one.



While the candidates may be from minor parties, the debate does have a major league media star, as the L.A. Times reports.

Larry King to moderate third-party presidential debate

Larry King will moderate a debate among the third-party presidential candidates on Oct. 23, the Free and Equal Elections Foundation announced on Tuesday.

The debate, which will be held in Chicago, will feature Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, and Rocky Anderson of the newly formed Justice Party. The event will be broadcast live on Ora TV, the digital programming service where King launched his online talk show, “Larry King Now,” earlier this year. The Free and Equal Elections Foundation and, for unclear reasons, Russia Today will also stream the debate online.

"[F]or unclear reasons, Russia Today"--snork! Russia Today loves to broadcast dissenting American voices, including tinfoil hat wearer Alex Jones. This event is right up their alley. In fact, I found out about this debate from them.

[A] third party candidate debate is getting some much needed attention. Christina Tobin, founder of Free and Equal, joins us to discuss why she organized a debate for third party candidates and how the two party system is hurting America.

Tobin mentioned Al Jazeera, and, yes, they're joining RT America in covering the debate, as the Huffington Post reports.

Third-Party Debate To Be Broadcast By Al Jazeera English, RT America, But Not Major Cable News Networks

Al Jazeera English plans to broadcast the debate live, an editorial decision that Bob Wheelock, executive producer for newsgathering for the Americas, calls a "no-brainer."

"We've covered the presidential debates and vice presidential debate thus far," Wheelock told The Huffington Post. "Our philosophy is to treat this one the same way. It's another voice in this country that we respect and believe should have a forum and an outlet."

Wheelock said that part of Al Jazeera English's mission is "to try to provide the voice and be in places where other people aren't -- to cover areas, countries, states, cultures that aren't routinely covered by the traditional broadcast networks and cable networks."
... Link TV will also carry Al Jazeera English's broadcast in areas where the network still isn't available on the cable dial.

That's where the debate stood yesterday morning. Then, a U.S. outlet finally joined in: C-SPAN will cover Free and Equal Presidential Debate Tomorrow. I checked C-SPAN's website, and sure enough, the debate is on the schedule for 9 PM tonight.

Oct 23 at 9:00 PM - C-SPAN 1 (01:30 HR)
Free and Equal Elections
Third party presidential candidates Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Virgil Goode, and Rocky Anderson hold a debate.

As for what this debate will accomplish, other than giving the minor parties the attention they deserve, it might just air issues that the major parties and the mainstream media didn't bother to ask, as Tobin herself was quoted as saying in the L.A. Times.

“The previous debates between President Obama and Gov. Romney have failed to address the issues that really concern everyday Americans. From foreign policy, to the economy, to taboo subjects like our diminishing civil liberties and the drug war, Americans deserve a real debate, real solutions, and real electoral options.”

I echoed those sentiments myself over at Kunstler's site yesterday.

Honestly, if you want people who are willing to take on those tough issues, you might have to wait until the Free and Equal debate featuring the four top minor party candidates. That will take place tomorrow night and will be televised by Al Jazeera English. The U.S. networks aren't touching it. Too bad. Maybe a coherent response could be cobbled together the positions from Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Rocky Anderson. I don't hold out much hope for anything useful coming out of the mouth of Virgil Goode.

Free and Equal will sponsor one last debate featuring minor party candidates.

Second 2012 Presidential Debate October 30 in Washington, DC

Viewers of First Debate to Determine Which Candidate Advances to the October 30 Debate via Instant Runoff Voting
...
Following the initial October 23 debate, viewers can vote for the candidates online, ranking their first and second choices. This form of instant runoff voting (IRV) — a method used in numerous countries, United States jurisdictions, and private organizations — allows voters to submit their top two choices, so they aren’t “throwing away” a vote. Voting ends 24 hours after the end of the debate. The top two candidates with the most votes will be announced Thursday morning and will advance to the final debate on October 30.

“This is an example of how a Presidential debate and election should work,” stated Christina Tobin, founder and chair of Free & Equal. “Instant runoff voting removes the spoiler effect and promotes more positive, issue-focused campaigns. This method brings neutrality and fairness to electing the leader of our country and eliminates the “lesser of two evils” problem.”

I suspect it will be Jill Stein vs. Gary Johnson in the final debate. There are enough Libertarians online to make sure of that.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Crazy Eddie's Motie News!

Since the sun is shining and I have a garden plot to tend, another blog to write, and a wife to love, I'll leave you all with a video spam from my YouTube subscription feed for today's holiday post.

The saying is that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's day. Russia Today demonstrates the truth of that saying with St. Patrick's Day in Moscow.





British Royalty even got into the act, with the Duchess of Cambridge presenting shamrock sprigs to the Irish Guards, including the unit's Irish Wolfhound mascot, as ITN reports.





The cermonies continued with the Irish Guards toasting the Duchess with beer.





Speaking of beer, Discovery News posted this video showing the highlights of the history and science of beer.

Beer has a lot more to it than just suds and bubbles. Daron Taylor takes a look!

On that note, here is a link my wife posted to her Facebook wall: The Nutritional Lowdown on Guinness.

Since St. Patrick’s Day is on a Saturday this year, we figured that more than a few of you would be down for celebrating with a pint of Ireland’s most famous export: Guinness stout.

If you are on a nutrition plan, you don’t have to forgo the Guinness entirely. Guinness has a reputation for being a meal in a glass, but it’s actually lower in calories and higher in nutrition that you might think.

Bottoms up!

Stop SOPA blackout

Two videos today, the first silly and the second serious. As one might expect, the silly one is from Next Media Animation.

To protest SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing and other sites are shutting down for a day on January 18th. The blackout seeks to educate the public about SOPA, which opponents say will "break the internet."

As hard as it is to go a whole day without Reddit or the cute animals of the Cheezeburger network, the site participating in the blackout with the biggest impact is likely to be Wikipedia. Tens of millions of people around the world check Wikipedia daily for fast information for free. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales warned students with a tweet: "Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa."

As the backlash against SOPA continues, Congress actually announced that the bill will be shelved. However, activists are adamant that the blackout will go ahead, in case SOPA makes a comeback, either on its own, or as PIPA, or the Protect IP Act.

Now the serious one, which is from Russia Today.

The world's most popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is going on strike on Wednesday. The "knowledge blackout" is aimed at protecting the Internet - and the website's very existence -- from online censorship.
The Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia foundation decided on a global blackout of the English version of the website for 24 hours starting at 05:00 UTC on January 18.

For more, read SOPA opponents gaining momentum; Wikipedia, Google join protest on MSNBC and Wikipedia to go dark Wednesday on Daily Kos. To sign a petition, there's one at Progressive Change Campaign Committee. I'm staying off this blog for the rest of the day. In fact, I'm not really on the blog today, as I programmed this post in advance the night before. If you're wondering what I'll be doing instead, check out the macro below.




May the 404ce be with you!

The end of an era: last space shuttle mission

Russia Today on YouTube: Atlantis has blasted off on NASA's last space shuttle launch. The historic liftoff occurred Friday morning, 30 years and three months after the very first shuttle flight. Four astronauts are riding Atlantis to orbit. The shuttle is bound for the International Space Station, making one final supply run. Hundreds of thousands of spectators jammed Cape Canaveral and surrounding towns for the farewell. Kennedy Space Center itself was packed with shuttle workers, astronauts and 45,000 invited guests, the maximum allowed. The flight will last 12 days. Weather permitting, Atlantis will return to Kennedy, where it will end up on permanent display.

Reuters: Space shuttle leaves Earth on final flight
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Fri Jul 8, 2011 1:24pm EDT

Space shuttle Atlantis rocketed off its seaside launch pad on Friday, rising atop a tower of smoke and flames as it left Earth on the shuttle program's final flight.

About 1 million sightseers witnessed the smooth liftoff from Kennedy Space Center. They lined causeways and beaches around the central Florida site, angling for a last glimpse of the pioneering ship that has defined the U.S. space program for the past 30 years.

"Good luck to you and your crew on this final flight of this true American icon," shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach radioed to the crew minutes before takeoff.
...
"The shuttle is always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through," said Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson.

I would consider myself remiss if I didn't at least mention this story, which I plan on highlighting as the science story of the week over on Daily Kos tomorrow night. After all, this blog is about both collapse, including decline, a leading indicator of collapse, and how to prevent it, and I examine these topics from a science fiction angle. I think few themes more exemplify civilizational decline in science fiction more than withdrawing from space, and those that do generally include loss of ability to travel off the planet.

So, how does this story qualify as a sustainability one? I can point to the obvious scientific and cultural aspects, as well as reiterating the comment from the article above that space travel is something great nations do, and I will point out the economic aspects of it. But let me first remind you of the following article from a month ago.

Indiana University: AHR examines ‘Earthrise era,’ symbols of Argentine cultural identity
June 6, 2011

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Hear the word "Earth," and the images likely to flash through the mind are descendants of two views afforded by the Apollo missions. One, a photograph called "Earthrise," shows Earth half-cloaked in shadow above a lifeless moonscape. A second, "Blue Marble," reveals our planet suspended alone in the void; it is reputed to be the most widely disseminated photograph in history.

Such views of Earth, it has been argued, prompted a revolution in the global imagination and a new appreciation for the beauty and fragility of the planet. But Benjamin Lazier, associate professor of history at Reed College, writing in the June 2011 issue of the American Historical Review, questions whether the Apollo images did indeed prompt such a revolution. And if so, he asks, to what ends?

Lazier supplements accounts of the Cold War origins and environmentalist afterlives of the "Earthrise era" with a history of philosophical responses to the earliest images of Earth from space. He focuses on thinkers -- including Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger and Hans Blumenberg -- who were troubled by the displacement of local, earthbound horizons with horizons that are planetary in scope and scale.

"Their example … prompts us to ask whether the visions and vocabularies of the Earthrise era have inadvertently accelerated our planetary emergency as much as they have inspired us to slow it down," he writes in "Earthrise; or, The Globalization of the World Picture."

Yes, the environmental era and the era of space travel not only coincide, they directly feed into one another. After all, I consider the use of "the planet" to describe Earth as a shibboleth of the environmental movement, and that use comes directly from space travel, as described above.

I did mention the economic angle. Time to return to it. From the Reuters article quoted above.

NASA is ending the shuttle program due to high operating costs.

"We have not found a way in this nation of being able to start a new program, and start it robustly, while continuing with an existing program," said NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver.

Along with everything else, the U.S. government is having difficulty funding this program. As I've told you before, the interplay between sustainability and austerity will shape the major issues for the rest of this decade, if not beyond.

I'm not the only one feeling that this mission is an ill omen, as the following article from Reuters demonstrates.

Shuttles' end stirs doubts about U.S. space program
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Fri Jul 8, 2011 12:48pm EDT

As the clock ticks down to this week's final space shuttle launch, there is a mounting sense of uncertainty about future U.S. dominance in space.

If all goes according to plan, Friday morning's launch of shuttle Atlantis on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station will mark the end of an era in the U.S. manned spaceflight program.

But veteran former astronauts say the space program is in "disarray" and fear the end of the shuttles could mean a permanent decline in U.S. space leadership as well.

Even one senior NASA official voiced pointed criticism recently about what he described as "poor policy" and the lack of any coherent leadership from Washington.
...
"We're basically decimating the NASA human spaceflight program," said seven-time shuttle flier Jerry Ross. "The only thing we're going to have left in town is the station and it's a totally different animal from the shuttle."

That sentiment is echoed by several Apollo-era luminaries, including the normally reticent Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 commander who 42 years ago was the first person to set foot on the moon.

Armstrong and colleagues Gene Cernan, commander of the final U.S. moon mission in 1972 and Jim Lovell, commander of the nearly fatal Apollo 13 flight, publicly decried the state of the U.S. space program in a widely distributed column.

"NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing," the astronauts wrote recently.

"After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent."

If I wanted to point to any statement that qualifies this article as a swim article, it's that last one. The U.S. appears to be swimming against its historical leadership position in space.

On the other hand, the people in charge disagree with all of the above, and can back it up with evidence. Again, from the Reuters article quoted above.

The White House and NASA's leaders have insisted, however, that America still has a bright future in space.
...
The new focus of the U.S. human space flight program will be the space station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that orbits 230 miles above Earth.
...
NASA will rely on Russia to fly its astronauts to the space station, at a cost of more than $50 million a seat, until commercial firms are ready to take over crew ferry flights.

Among the companies interested in the work is Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which already has a NASA contract to fly cargo to the station.

The company, owned by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, successfully tested its Dragon capsule in orbit last December and hopes to make it all the way to the station during a second test flight later this year.

The other freighter, being developed by Orbital Sciences Corp, has yet to debut.

NASA also is backing space taxi development work by Boeing Co, Sierra Nevada Corp and Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The U.S. space agency also plans to use the $4 billion or so it has been spending each year to maintain and operate its three space shuttles to develop new spacecraft that can travel beyond the station's near-Earth orbit, where the shuttles cannot go.

I hope they're right. Otherwise, the U.S. will be playing out one of the classic tragic technological decline scenarios from science fiction in real life.

Sustainability video linkspam for the week ending June 25, 2011

I made the following programming note yesterday.

Yes, you get a meal of leftovers tonight, but feeding it to you all clears the way for a fresh linkspam of local news tomorrow, some videos I've been sitting on, and more coverage of stories I've been following, such as the ongoing saga of gas prices and the economy.

As I watch videos pop up on my YouTube subscription list, I save them to my Motie News playlist. Nearly all the videos that I've used on this blog are in it. When I went back to look at the list, it turned out that I had enough for a complete linkspam. Here it is, including some videos on the playlist that I've had in the backlog since May.

General Sustainability

Peak Moment 196: "Petroleum Man is dead. Infinite Growth Man is dead. Post Petroleum Human is alive," announced Michael C. Ruppert on May 22, 2011. Members of this emerging "species" know they must live in balance with the Earth, while remembering the lessons of industrial civilization. The star and subject of the documentary "Collapse", Mike founded CollapseNet.com in 2010 to empower people to connect and relocalize.

Ruppert plays almost as big a role in "The End of Suburbia" as Kunstler. Should my students ask what he's doing these days, seven years after "The End of Suburbia" was filmed, I can show them this clip.

Also, Peak Oil is one of the defining sustainability issues of our time, even more than climate change. Of course, the two are intimately connected, but I'm with Kunstler, Ruppert, and others that Peak Oil and its consequences are more likely to cause collapse than climate change.

Speaking of climate change...

Environment, including science and technology

With rising temperatures, extended fire seasons and foreign plant species threatening some of California's most treasured parks, Jarvis discusses actions underway to respond to the crisis.

As a former national park ranger, and a lifelong fan of national parks, I see the problems of the national parks as a good example of how our natural capital is at risk from climate change.

Kirk Goldsberry, assistant professor in the Department of Geography, talks about creating informational graphics and maps to help convey information.

Pay attention to the maps showing the difference in access to produce in Greater Lansing for people who walk and people who drive. Yes, this is old, but it's worth watching.

Society, including culture and politics

M

Ta Da! Today is the day you've been waiting for! The brand new Weather Girls for May. Watch the Sunday eco-friendly angel Kitty bring you the the weather and words of wisdom.

This video from May 1st kicked off a month of green-themed dancing girls, another example of sustainability in unexpected places.

Now, to make up for the above video, I present the following.

It is a movement against the belief that any aspect of a woman's appearance might explain or excuse rape.

Remember, the social component of sustainability is about promoting a just society. So is the movement described above.

Also, this happened in Grand Rapids? I'll have to search to see if this was the first one in Michigan. I'd be surprised if Grand Rapids beat out Ann Arbor.

Economy

The Nation Institute's Chris Hedges and author of his most recent book, The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress says the world as we know it is coming to an end. And what follows won't be pleasant or easy. But that the revolution must start, in America. Hedges joins the show to explain.

I could have posted this video right after the Peak Moment video featuring Ruppert, but there is more of an economic focus in this one. By the way, what Hedges describes is both Kunstler's "Consensus Trance" and Bageant's "The Hologram," both of which are worthy of their own posts.

Speaking of dissident voices on economics from Russia Today, here's Matt Taibbi in a video from about a month ago.

RT's Anastasia Churkina sits down with Matt Taibbi - journalist, author and contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine.

Why is it that our best muckraking reporting on economics and politics is being published in a music magazine? Think about that one, and tie it into what Hedges says above. I'll get back to you on that one.

Chrysler new paint shop

And now, some good local economic news that ties back to investment in technology, completing the circle.

Time to go to work!